Freight at Frejus, Afa, the Italy-France railway motorway at risk

Now that rail transit at the Frejus has finally reopened, we need to get the goods back. And the task is not so simple. A study carried out by Uniontrasporti quantified at 8,000 tonnes of goods per day the share of exports on the Frejus rail axis, a share that was frozen after the closure in August 2023 and that mostly chose the road or, to a much lesser extent, alternative passages such as the Gotthard, which however means lengthening the distances and adding the variable of Customs.

At the heart of the issue is the historic Alpine Rail Motorway (Afa) project, which in recent years has guaranteed a share, albeit minimal, of rail freight transport and intermodality along the route to France. A service that due to the complexities of the historic Frejus tunnel, starting with the steep slope, has significant costs and has been subsidised by the two states, Italy and France, with a share of about 3.5 million each per year.

Now everything has been blocked for 19 months and it is not certain that the machine will start up again. "The line is open," explains Enzo Pompilio D'Alicandro, executive vice-president of SITO Spa, "but the problem is whether and when it will be possible to put the Alpine railway service from Orbassano to Aiton, used mainly for the transport of hazardous goods, back on track. The technical feasibility of this service is not clear; we know that Rfi has made tracks available, a problem that is then compounded by that of the resources that the States will have to allocate".

An initial hypothesis is to restart on 1 July, but the service could be postponed for a further six months. A stalemate that has led to about 25 SITO employees being laid off, whose 52-week lay-off period is about to expire. "Arriving in July or December is a serious problem because these people work on the Afa service and have in fact been laid off since August 2023," Pompilio adds. This is an emergency that needs to be managed to avoid redundancies and loss of skills.

Among the few market players using rail freight transport at Frejus is Ambrogio Trasporti, which resumed service just over a fortnight ago, immediately after the reopening of transit. "It has been 19 months of passion, with an interruption that has cost us, in the budget, 4 million in increased costs related to longer distances in kilometres and transport times. Without receiving any compensation or aid from anyone".